The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1887-03-04

labor, in order to keep up the wages Of the
working men, and then bringing the pau.
per laborers themselves. [Cheersl. Not
protection, not restriction ofany kind; what
labor needs is freedom. A voice
That's it," Applausel. Don't be
afraid of liberty; trnst her, follow her.
for one, let me say it frankly. do not
believe in that plank in your plat
form, asking for the passage of laws that
| shall promote the establishment of coop
erative institutions. Sweep away the re-
strictons now imposed by law and work
| ingmen can start all the cooperative III
stitutions they need; [applausel all the CO.
operative institutions they want
| Labor is the creator of wealth. Without
labor capital could not be. Labor is the
| primary element in production. Ali labor
| needs is the raw material of the earth to
work upon, and wealth will be produced.
Applause. Give labor access to that and
| the labor question is solved. Well, some
of you may say, Glow are you going to
do it?'' We do not propose to do it by
taking the land violently from its present
possessors; we don't propose to do it by
cutting the land up into little pieces and
giving every man his equal share. We
do not propose to do it by making land a
common, SO that everyone would have a
right to 90 in upon it and disturb the pos
SCISSOR. In none Of those ways could the
common right to land be acknowledged.
We propose to do it simply by shifting tax
alton from the products of industry on to
land values, [applausel, and finally taking
the whole ANIMAL value of the land for the
benefit of the whole community, so that a
man who holds valuable piece Of land
will under that system, pay to the rest of
the community what the privilege of hold
ing it is fairly worth. Applause.
Now, there is nothing very destructive
in that. There is nothing very revolution
AIRY in that. We are in reality eonserva
tives. We are in reality sticklers for Che
right Of property applause We be-
ieve in the rieht Of property. We hold
to the sacred right OF property. That
which man makes is his as against all
others. Loud applause. That which the
labor of arm or of brain produces belongs
to the laborer Applause and is his to use,
to give, to bequeath, to do whatever he
pleases with, so long as in any use he
makes of it he does no injury to any other.
Applause. When man bailds house,
that house is, and ought to be, his If a
man makes a Shoe, if he raises a crop, the
whole benefit ought to go to him, and we
arrai9n our present system i'll this: that 1t
denies and impars and abridges the true
right OF property Applause. y man
who produces wealth in this community is
fined for doing so. Laughter If you
work hard, and am a loaier; if you save
and | am spendthrift, the tax gatherer
comes around and says, because you nave
worked and because you have saved you
must be fined for it. That is utterly
wrong: just as bad as is this thing of rob
bling man who attempts to bring goods
into the country. Goods are good things.
The more we have of them the better it
ought to be for all of us, and the more
houses we have and the more ships we
have, the more wealth in any of its forms,
the more there is for us to get. 1t is
wrong; it is denial of the right of proper
ty to tax the products of industry, to tax
wealth in any of its forms: and by wealth,
what mean is the products Of industry
that to which human labor has gone, for
in the true sense of the term nothing else
is wealth. But we can tax the value of
land without diminishing anything of
wealth i'll the community. Tax houses and
you W i'll have fewer of them. Tax ships
and you will lessen the building of ships;
Just as when you tax dogs YOU tend to les
sen the number of dogs. Loud laughter
But you can tax land all you please and
You won't have any less land. Applause.
And you can tax land values all You please
and your land won't be any the less useful
You won't in the slightest degree repress
or diminish the production or the accumu-
lation of wealth: but will tell you what
you will do--you will insure its fair dis
tiibution.
And see the justice Of this: We say the
property here has increased three times
within the last ten or fifteen years. What
has increased in value? Not the building;
the building is not worth as much as it
was then. The building constantly dimin-
ishes in value. 1t is simply the land that
has gone up. What has caused the in
crease in the value of the land? Anything
that the owner of this particular land has
done? Not at all. 1t has been the growth
of the city-that there are more people
here Every emigrant that comes to settle
in Philadelphia, every child that is born.
every man that marries tends to increase
the value of land. 1t is created by the
community 1t rises with the growth of
the community. and therefore it ought to
be taken for the use of the community
[Applause.1
Now. what would be the effect of doing
thats House rent would be cheaper. Tax
building and you add to the price that
must be paid for the use of the building;
tax the value of the land and you do not,
and the reason of that is this: that one is a
thing Of human production that must be
constantly supplied, because houses tend to
wear ont. Its price is governed by the
cost of production. But there is no cost
of production to the land The value of a